HBO's New Documentary 'About Face' Highlights the Last of the Supermodels

"I love it here. The French toast is delicious," filmmaker and portrait photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders remarked while settling in at his favorite breakfast spot in LA—Charlie's Place at the Farmer's Market. "We are not on the model diet," added his producing partner Chad Thompson. The pair was beaming the morning after their documentary, About Face, screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

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The details of how and why Greenfield-Sanders—who's made a number of documentaries for HBO and has photographed everyone from Orson Welles to George W. Bush—chose this project quickly unfolded. After attending British hair guru Harry King's Facebook Party—the legend's attempt to reunite his former model clients, who are all now Facebook friends—Greenfield-Sanders felt the urge to recapture the reunion he witnessed and allow the world to take part.

Within 48 hours, two photo shoots ensued—one in LA and one in New York—with the models. "I filmed it and did interviews on those days," said Greenfield-Sanders. "I had twenty-five hours of all this stuff, and I thought, 'There's a film here, and it's not just about the '70s and '80s—it's the '60s and '50s as well."

The final product? A documentary that invites seventeen supermodels—including Christy Turlington, Paulina Porizkova, Christie Brinkley, Beverly Johnson, Isabella Rossellini, and Jerry Hall—to tell their individual stories and give their varied stances on plastic surgery, the darker side of the business, and what it meant to be a supermodel in the golden age of modeling.

Greenfield-Sanders's decision to expand the project also allowed for models Carmen Dell'Orefice and China Machado to speak about being pioneers in the industry—which until they broke out had little desire for diversity—and opened the interview floor to Calvin Klein, King—the man who started it all—and a humorously curt Eileen Ford, co-founder of Ford Models.

The conversational interview style and candid revelations—all thanks to Greenfield-Sanders's ability to mix the benefits of portraiture with filmmaking—gave the film a substantial story. "I think all the women became who they really are in the film. For me, I'm trying to get someone's essence, not 'get them,'" Greenfield-Sanders said. Thompson continued: "Most of the interviews were at least two hours long. They really opened up for Timothy and were very honest. They're at the age and point in their career where they can be themselves."

The filmmaker qualified: "But you could also say there's more risk, in a sense, because they're letting all their secrets out." The women certainly let juicy tidbits slip: Porizkova dishes on having a man flash her; Christy Turlington and Jerry Hall (with her "British to Southern Texas, by way of Paris to London" drawl) talk curfew hour while under the thumb of Eileen Ford; and all of the models divulge on plastic surgery. They also revisit the different eras and the history of modeling—spoiler: at one time models were thought of as hookers.

With the modeling world evolving, the supermodel may be a dying breed. "I don't think there are the supermodels today that we had back then," Thompson reminisced. "You know, back then, models appeared on magazine covers. Now, it's celebrities. And when the models were on the magazine cover, they were in homes, they were in grocery stores, in magazine shops—you saw and recognized those faces—and now, the models don't have that opportunity to be at that level of superstardom."

Acknowledging the importance of the documentary, Thompson said, "These women really established beauty for many generations" Greenfield-Sanders weighed in: "And they're not going to be around forever."